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On May 28, International Day of Action for Women’s Health, Women’s Rights Defenders Mobilize Worldwide Calling for the Inclusion of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Post-2015 Development Agenda

May 27 2014

On May 28, women’s rights defenders and activists from all over the world are mobilizing to observe May 28th International Day of Action for Women’s Health. Various activities will be organized by sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) organizations and women’s advocacy groups to call on governments and the international community to ensure a holistic, inclusive, and human rights-based approach to women’s SRHR in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Earlier this month over 20 international, regional and national organisations led by Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) re-launched the May 28 Campaign, first established in 1987 by women’s rights activists at the IV International Women’s Health Meeting in Costa Rica, as a means to speak out on SRHR issues faced by women and girls all over the world.

Nearly 30 years on, women human rights defenders warn that the full realization of all women’s SRHR remains far from being addressed, as “women’s health” has often been reduced to a limited understanding of maternal health, overlooking the actual needs of all women in their diversities. As a result, significant challenges persist, in terms of recognizing sexual rights in addition to reproductive rights, ensuring universal access to contraceptives and safe and legal abortion, as well as comprehensive sexuality education for young people, among other critical SRHR issues.

Currently governments around the world are involved in the process of evaluating achievements under the present global development agenda expressed in the Millennium Development Goals, set to end in 2015, and as such are also in the midst of formulating a Post-2015 Development Agenda. Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) joins the re-launch of the May 28 campaign to demand the inclusion of their human right to health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, of which our sexual and reproductive health and rights are an integral part.

“We are holding governments accountable, in order to ensure that national policies effectively guarantee and support women’s choices and rights in relation to all aspects of their sexual and reproductive health, throughout the course of their lives, having in consideration the special needs of women in their diversities,” says Kathy Mulville from WGNRR. “These obligations, moreover, are not just about governments reaffirming past commitments and repeating past words; they are about taking action, and adapting to new realities in order to fulfill rights that for too long have been disregarded and even explicitly denied.”